Thursday, February 20, 2014

With Ukraine in the news on a daily
basis, I thought that a bit of background about the nation may help us put
things into perspective and better understand the root causes of the current unrest.

Let's open with a map showing the geographic location of Ukraine:

The political movement against the
current President Viktor Yanukovych began in November 2013 when he decided to
sign a trade deal with Russia rather than with the EU. This resurrected
old divisions in the nation that are related to the country's demographics as
shown on this map:

Ukraine's political theatre has long
been divided between those who speak Ukrainian and live in the west part of the
country (the areas in red and pink) and those who speak Russian and live in the
east part of the country (in shades of yellow). About two-thirds of
people who live in Ukraine are ethnic Ukrainians, 16 percent are ethnic
Russians and 16 percent are ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian.

This division has had a significant
impact on Russian politics. The President of Ukraine is elected for a
five year term. When no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote,
in the first round, a second round takes place three weeks after the election
day between the two candidates who won the most votes in the first round.
In the 2010 election, the two candidates who received the most votes in
the first two rounds were Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko.

Here is a map showing the results for the
February 7th, 2010 runoff Presidential election by candidate, starting with the
current President, Viktor Yanukovych:

The areas in darker blue are the
regions where Mr. Yanukovych took a larger share of the vote. You will
notice that Mr. Yanukovych was most popular in the east part (Russian sector)
of the country where he garnered up to 9.55 percent of the total national vote
and that he was least popular in the western part of the country where he
received less than 1 percent of the national vote. Overall, Mr.
Yanukovych received 12481266 votes or 48.96 percent of the total.

Here is a map showing the results
for Mr. Yanukovych's competitor, Yulia Tymoshenko:

The areas in darker yellow are the
regions where Ms. Tymoshenko, Ukraine's former Prime Minister, took a larger
share of the vote. You'll notice that Ms. Tymoshenko was most popular in
the west part (Ukrainian sector) of the country where she garnered up to 5.15
percent of the national vote and that she was least popular in the western part
of the country where she received less than 1 percent of the national vote.
Overall, Ms. Tymoshenko received 11593357 votes or 45.48 percent of the
total. An additional 4.36 percent of voters cast their ballots "against
all candidates".

This election was the fifth held
since Ukraine gained its independence from Russia. After the election
results were in, Ms. Tymoshekno challenged the final election results in the
High Administrative Court, alleging that the February 7th runoff vote was
marred by numerous violations, calling for a third round of elections.
The court denied her motion to call members of the District Elections
Commissions and Precinct Elections Commissions as witnesses so she withdrew her
complaint.

From this posting, you can quite
readily see why there is such unrest in Ukraine. With the nation divided
in two along ethnic lines and historic rivalries, the situation will be very
difficult to solve.

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About Me

I have been an avid follower of the world's political and economic scene since the great gold rush of 1979 - 1980 when it seemed that the world's economic system was on the verge of collapse. I am most concerned about the mounting level of government debt and the lack of political will to solve the problem. Actions need to be taken sooner rather than later when demographic issues will make solutions far more difficult. As a geoscientist, I am also concerned about the world's energy future; as we reach peak cheap oil, we need to find viable long-term solutions to what will ultimately become a supply-demand imbalance.